HGC Leagues for North America, Europe, Korea, and China will be formatted as follows:
Post-BlizzCon, six teams will compete in a series of tournaments to qualify and join two invited teams as the top eight strongest in their region. All teams will compete against each other for ten weeks, after which the top in the standings will automatically qualify for the Mid-Season Brawl – an international 12-team tournament.
The 2nd through 6th place teams will fight in the HGC Playoffs to determine the final spot for the Mid-Season Brawl. The bottom two teams in the standings will face off in the ‘Crucible’ against the top two Open Division teams for the last two HGC spots.
Halfway through regular season play, the top teams from all regions will face off in a Western and Eastern Clash exhibition tournament.
There’s no word yet on the format for the smaller regions.
With this new system in place, here is the tentative timeline for HGC 2017:
November-December: QualifiersJanuary-February: First five weeks of league competitionMarch: Eastern and Western ClashesMarch-April: Final five weeks of league competitionApril: HGC PlayoffsMay: HGC CrucibleMay/June: Mid-Season BrawlJune-July: League competitionJuly: Eastern and Western ClashesAugust-September: League competitionOctober: HGC PlayoffsNovember: HGC Finals (BlizzCon) and HGC Crucible
This new format is outrageously different from what Blizzard has done for Heroes eSports in the past. HGC 2016 was somewhat disappointing with a horde of scheduling mishaps, along with poor production quality.
The new league format shows that Blizzard has yet to give up on their hero brawler title and could be their last stitch effort at making Heroes eSports great again.
